In a conventional technique, to retrieve a word composed of a character string of a plurality of characters, the reading of the word is input. A character related to the word and a character in the word may be changed. In this case, the following operations are performed:
a. Re-input the word to be retrieved.
b. Select the next word or the previous word in the Japanese syllabary (or alphabetical order).
c. Select skipping of a specified number of words in the Japanese syllabary (or alphabetical order), etc.
In the above-described operation c, a page is turned to the next page or is returned to the previous page. If there is a gap between a displayed character and a character to be retrieved, the above-described operations are repeated. This may cause trouble for a user.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-99677 discloses that a character or a word included in a desired entry word and a position of the character or the word in the desired entry word are specified in a condition and the entry word that is satisfied with this condition is displayed. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-99677 discloses that a user specifies a kanji and a character indicating a character position in an entry word of the kanji and the entry word is determined and then a list of the entry words is classified and displayed.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-236201 discloses that, as a character retrieval function for specifying a character position to be changed, dictionary data is retrieved by using a leading character string, which is specifically indicated in hiragana, out of character strings to be read by processing for extracting a candidate.
To change a character in an arbitrary position in a word, the user inputs a new word. This causes trouble for the user. In an operation for selecting the next word or the previous word one after another instead of inputting characters, the user may reach to a desired word by repeating this operation. However, the user may become tired when repeating this operation. This is because the user is required to pay attention to key operations for selection and to changing words if there are many words between the currently displayed word and the desired word. This causes trouble and takes time for the user to select the word.
With reference to FIG. 25A, FIG. 25B, and FIG. 26B, the above-described selection operation will be described. FIG. 25A and FIG. 25B are diagrams illustrating a conventional selection operation of a character string. FIG. 26 is a diagram illustrating another selection operation of a character string by conventional page change.
In the dictionary, after retrieving the character string, for example, “ . . . ” in ten words displayed as illustrated in FIG. 25B, when the user retrieves “ . . . ” that is close to the word “ . . . ” successively as illustrated in FIG. 25A, there are many words between “ . . . ” and “ . . . ” if the second and following characters are arranged in the Japanese syllabary (or alphabetical order). For example, the number of the words may be hundreds. For example, if there are five hundred words between “ . . . ” and “ . . . ” five hundred key operations may be required if the user selects each word in between. As illustrated in FIG. 26, even though a page changing method may be performed, approximately fifty page changes are required to reach page Pn with “ . . . ” from page P1 with “ . . . .”
Even though the existence of the above-described words may be expected to some extent, the user usually believes that he/she may reach a desired word by updating and selecting the words one after another, so that the user does not usually retype the word intuitively. The above-described operation and repeat of the operation may require a large number of operations to be performed in the end.
As for a cache of a word list, when character input is performed, it is unpredictable what kind of character string is input. Thus, a cache of the page to be displayed next is difficult to be performed. Loading may not be performed unless the word is determined. Thus, page display is delayed and the processing requires more time.